


Black roses, yellow carnations, and bittersweets

by Oillamps



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Author Is Sleep Deprived, Canon Divergence - Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Color Blindness, Everyone Is Alive, Gen, How Do I Tag, Hurt Michelle Jones, Hurt Tony Stark, Michelle Jones Is a Good Bro, Michelle Jones-centric, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Outer Space, Time Skips
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-09-03
Packaged: 2020-08-13 07:46:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 1,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20170687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oillamps/pseuds/Oillamps
Summary: The world has changed forever.Pictures of a bed ridden Natasha Romanov, and coma induced Tony stark circulate news stations and magizine covers.There was a battle, and half the universe was gone for 5 years. No one remembers the time lost,Except the insane.Thousands of concerned nurses and doctors wrote reports about their patients talking about, orange skies, water cover floors, long rivers, floating in space with dazzling colors light swirling around, Green Forests, and Rocky Cliff faces. No one believe them, no one should, these were the people that jumped out windows thinking their cat was standing on its head and playing the banjo, they set fire to their own homes thinking there was a giant elephant dancing with the fly in that living room, they fall in random places thinking there are stairs where they are not. They should be locked up in a padded room so they don't hurt themselves or othersWhat happens when a sane person remembers?





	1. Crumbling

Michelle was in the school library. She didn't want to see the marching band play as the teachers scrambled to find an explanation about the spacecraft they saw on the way to their field trip, Before they pulled off the road and turned around.

She was nestled in a window seat listening to her music. The library had only a few lights on, making the warm sunlight a great place to curl up in the dimly lit room.It was vacant at the moment so she had no clue what was transpiring around the city. 

Her music slowly got muffled and the colors around her softened.

She felt tingly. A water-like sensation started at her toes. It Rose, lapping playfully at her ankles. She didn't freak out or even get remotely concerned. Her thoughts became fuzzy, and smeared together. Slowly, it made its way up her leg. 

Her dusting was peaceful,

Like the first brushstroke of colored paint on a clean canvas.

Like a flower opening its petals stretching gracefully in the sun's early morning glow.

Like the pitter-patter of rain on grey cement. 

Like taking an old book down from the shelf and slowly turning the pages one at a time.

Like a mother when the children are put to bed and the house is finally quiet.

The feeling was not bliss, for it was not a "bubbly" tight-in-your-chest sort of thing, more of a feeling of content, that hollows out your soul, making room for the journey ahead. The journey of moving to a new part of your life, but still remembering what you learned from past adventures. 

She closed her eyes,

leaned her head back, 

and took a deep breath


	2. Dreaming?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Michelle sees the light.

Black. 

Just black. 

Michelle felt like she was floating, It didn't make sense at all. She couldn't hear anything not even blood rushing in her ears. 

"Was she breathing" It seemed not, she couldn't feel the air rushing into and out of her lungs. 

"How is she alive right now?" She tried to rationalize, if she was dead that meant that there was some sort of afterlife.

She didn't really follow any religion, sure she celebrated Christmas but that was more of the commercialized holiday to her than anything spiritual. Of course she could just have fallen asleep somewhere and this was just a dream.

Honestly there were too many possibilities that it could be. She mentally shook herself, she should be focusing on the present, not the past. Well she had to assume time had passed. She scolded herself again, going through a list of things she should check. Probably the senses first since those were how she experienced the world. 

She knew she couldn't hear, but being deaf wasn't that bad.She couldn't smell anything, but that made sense since she wasn't breathing. She moved her toes and finger reassuring herself that she had all her limbs. She could still taste the green tea she had from this morning.Now for the big one, sight.

She realized a few seconds ago that she had her eyes shut,so she cracked her eyes open just a little. And was immediately blinded "Okay So I do have sight" she thought. She brought her hands up from her side and put them over her face. She knew she would have to let her eyes slowly adjust. She opened her eyes and cracked her fingers the smallest amount apart. She blinked a couple of times before opening her fingers a little more. She went on like that until she could take her hands away from her face and not feel like she was checking her phone in the middle of the night. 

Once she could finally see it, the sight before her was stunning. Stars were swirled in colors she couldn't begin to explain, they were not even on the color wheel. The stars were dazzling little pinpoints of bright lights, some blinking. It moved like a tide, some colors rushing in and others slowly being pulled back. It was very relaxing and interesting to look at. Not having anything else to do, she just floated suspended in the air, watching the colors swirl,swish, and slowly change colors.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The school year has started up again and I've been slammed with homework. That being said, my posting schedule will be all kinds of wonky untill I find the right balance, so I apologize in advance for any prolonged periods of wait
> 
> I would love it if I could hear feedback for the story, getting opinions on what I could improve on really helps


	3. The way home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She's back

She didn't know how long she floated for, seconds, minutes, hours, but the water-like sensation was back again.

Like before it slowly started at her legs and crept up her. This time though, she wanted to keep her eyes open.

It was up to her waist now and she looked down. She saw little specks of dust floating away from were her legs were supposed to be. She was totally and completely freaked out, she reckoned if she would have been able to breathe she would be hyperventilating. This was exactly how it felt last time, that means this happened to her in the library.

It was starting at her hands now, she held them up to her face watching the dust slowly float away. All she could think of was the saying ashes to ashes, dust to dust. It was sort of ironic at this point for her to think of that, and she almost laughed. She was sure this was the end.

Her vision started to blacken around the edges, The stars went out one by one. 

Michelle woke up to people surrounding her. 

They were just colored blobs for a few seconds, then they started to come into focus. Ned, Betty, and Mr.Harrington were the only faces she recognized in the crowd. 

-ichelle can you hear me?" She must have blanked out for a few seconds and missed them talking.

She quickly replied,"yeah"

"Kay that's good" said Betty

"What happened" she looked around and saw she was sitting on the library floor.

"It's sorta hard to explain, and we might be here awhile if I do" Betty paused,

"actually I think it would be better if Ned explained it to you" 

The attention of the room focused Ned as he responded," If you feel good enough we can talk it over coffee?"

"Sure" she said feeling a little creeped out by the way they all were acting.

* * *

While they walked to the coffee shop they saw all the changes that happened when they were gone, whole sides of buildings had been replaced,new shops stood in the place of old ones,and there were more vacant office spaces than there already was before. They were going to Before Beans, It was a small shop and it was relatively close to the school, and both of the owners had survived the indecent.

They took a table near the back, ordering their usual breakfast pastries and drinks.

"So" MJ started, "what actually happened" "I personally don't know all the details but this is what I've been told," Ned continued,

"This big purple grape dude wanted some sort of power gems. Apparently some of the gems were on Earth so he went to get them, and the avengers tried to stop him. They failed. This purple grape, then decided to be dumb and use the power gems to destoy half of all living creatures, instead of just doubleing the resources. There were only half of all the avengers, so it took them 5 years to bring us back.

" Five ...years" MJs eyes widened

"Yeah, five years"

"Oh ! Also it took you longer to come back than the rest of us"

"huh?"

"You came back 2 minutes later than the rest of the school"

"Strange"

Nedl looked down at his coffee stirring it slightly, "I almost forgot to tell you, Peter's alright, he just had to check on his Aunt May"

"Oh, I hope she's alright" 

To be honest with herself, Michelle hadn't even thought of her own family. She realized that she probably should be going to check up on them. 

She said goodbye to Ned and started towards her home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Waking up at 12 in the afternoon is horrible when its the only nice day of the entire week.


	4. No place like home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some things really have changed

Her parents stared at her, 

father broke out sobbing

Her mother slowly backed up into the kitchen counter

They must have not been dusted, Michelle blankly realized

Her world was flipped upside down, again

Why did this have to happen to her?

Out of all the timelines,

Why this one.

* * *

Michelle woke up on the sofa

She got up and reached for her phone, wanting to check the time.

12:36 a.m.

Michelle quickly scampered into the kitchen to fetch a glass of water.

Earlier had been a blur, both her parents at some point cried, she got another explanation of what happened, and she found out her parents had fostered a 14 year old boy whose parents had died in a car accident, shortly after the snap.

Apparently he was now in college studying to be a doctor.

He would be coming home three days from now. Her new brothers name was ironically Michael.

She wouldn't lie to herself, she felt replaced

Horribly, utterly, replaced

She put her empty glass in the sink, not noticing the dulling colors around her.

* * *

Monochromacy, mono meaning one, and chromo meaning colour

This explained her situation entirely.

She woke up a few minutes ago and immediately noticed the difference in her eyesight, the colors weren't there at all.

There was just white, gray, and black now.

She had been in so much shock yesterday the reality of this, really didn't settle in. She just closed her laptop and went in search of breakfast.

She was in the middle of pouring her cereal when she got a text from Ned. It read,

"Peter's back, someone will be picking u up in thirty minutes" She was very confuzzled, and it was way too early to deal with these type of cryptic messages.

She just replied "??? I Thought he was already back"

After a couple of minutes she got a response back, "Peter's in a location I can't disclose, May was his cover story, but he wants to see u, so someone will come pick u up. I would pack a bag u would normally take to go out to study or something"

"Okay, this is actually Ned, since he used "u" way to much to be considered socially acceptable in this society. So I better go get a bag" she dulfuly thought to herself.

At least she'll see get to see Peter, even though this sounds hella sketchy.

Honestly though, she always had suspicions about Peter, she even had several theories about it. Some of these theories in questions were, he was a drug dealer (highly unlikely), he was in a cult/gang (also unlikely), and finally he associated with /was Spiderman. That last one was a little out there, but until you get enough evidence, anything could be possible. She normally liked to stay out of everyone's business, but this wasn't the average teen drama you saw every day, and hey if it provided ample entertainment she wouldn't complain.

She looked down at her phone

Oh shoot!, she had five minutes left to pack her bag before her "ride" got here.

She quickly grabbed her backpack, dumped all the junk out of it, and raced around the house to find her sketchbook, trusty pencils, and a small bug out bag she kept in her dresser. Listen, she was going into a situation where she would be jumping into an unknown car, a little protection wouldn't hurt anyone.

A car horn honked out front.

Wlep, that would be her ride.

This would be fun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaaaah sory I couldn't get this out sooner, I was horribly sick with the stomach bug and had no energy at all. Homework as always has been killing me, but what's new (honestly it's probably not the worst they could do, and that scares me). Somehow over the course of the few days my friends have agreed that tooth fairies rule over us lesser beings and that all of the teachers are demons sent to destroy the child's brain of the truth with lectures and piles of homework. 
> 
> The one and only,  
Oillamps


End file.
